The Deserted Lighthouse
20 September 2021
at home
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
I’ve been wanting to try one of the Exit puzzles for a while, but am definitely not a puzzle enthusiast, so thought I’d start with this one, which uses puzzles as part of the storyline.
The Deserted Lighthouse has an interesting story to begin with, for some reason you are trudging along a lonely stretch of coast in a terrible rainstorm, when you see the brilliant beam of a lighthouse. You decide to head towards it to seek shelter, but suddenly the beam goes out, endangering an approaching ship in the rocky waters. You must find your way inside the lighthouse and up to the top to re-light the beam and save the approaching ship.
In this game, each room is made up of a puzzle, which you utilize to find and solve riddles hidden within. This of course adds the extra complication of having to solve the puzzle before even seeing and finding puzzles, riddles and clues. Other than that, it does work very similarly to many other Exit games, it just seems a little more extensive. As usual with Exit games, there’s a decoder disc to help you check the codes you find, this one also has a series of little booklets for each lock you open, four different puzzles for the four different rooms to be discovered, and a few items needed to complete the puzzles.
I do like the idea of this style of game, but I do think with the jigsaw puzzles, it’s not suitable for more than two players at a time. I solo’d the game, so had no issues, but if you play with a group, the whole jigsaw thing might be a bit annoying. They’re quite small and not very difficult to assemble though. The game lets you know when to assemble a new puzzles to discover a new room.
The riddles and puzzles didn’t seem very difficult to solve, seeing as it’s a 4 out of 5 difficulty rating I did expect them to be more difficult. I didn’t need any of the hints available and solved the game in just over 100 minutes. It was quite fun, just not as challenging as I expected. Still, I’ll definitely try other Exit puzzle games as I did quite enjoy this one.